Climate change alarmism cooling off

December 1, 2011

Another frantic effort to redistribute wealth from developed nations to developing nations is under way, this time in Durban, South Africa. The excuse is the same old, tiresome claim that socialism writ large is necessary to save the planet from global warming.

Fewer people are fooled every year the United Nations brings together representatives of about 190 nations hoping to profit from the shakedown. Just as claims of climate doom are wearing thin, so are arguments for separating you from your money.

We like the way contrarian climate scientist S. Fred Singer describes the confab: “10,000 or so Durban attendees — official delegates, U.N. and government officials, journalists, NGO types and other hangers-on — will have a grand old time: two weeks of feasting, partying, living it up in luxury hotels, and greeting old friends at this 17th reunion — all at someone else’s expense.”

“At someone else’s expense” could be the theme of the global warming movement.

Americans should be pleased that the conference no sooner began than the U.S. was blamed for not taxing and regulating greenhouse gases enough, and for not writing enough compensatory checks to countries less fortunate. In the view of those overseas who want your money, America still hasn’t sacrificed enough, despite onerous regulations and punitive taxes imposed domestically.

The United States and other developed nations are realizing that reducing their own productivity — a byproduct of reducing greenhouse gas emissions — isn’t smart in hard times. It’s good to see common sense prevail.

On the eve of this conference to extend the Draconian Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas-limiting treaty, someone leaked thousands of emails revealing the duplicity, flawed science and conspiratorial inclination of the clique of climate scientists, who have claimed global warming threatens the planet.

A similar leak occurred on the eve of the 2009 global warming conference in Copenhagen, which ended in frustration for climate alarmists and nothing binding for the rest of us. The emails’ peek behind the scenes called into question the motives of climate alarmists, the reliability of the science behind their scary stories and pointed up the conspiratorial nature of the clique.

It also hasn’t hurt that the public increasingly is aware climate alarmists’ catastrophic claims aren’t panning out. Sea levels declined in 2010, rather than drowning island nations as claimed. The melting of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snow cap was proven unrelated to global warming, contrary to claims. There are fewer, not more, devastating hurricanes. Temperatures at best have remained level for nearly 15 years, despite historic increases in CO2 emissions, which warming theorists insist should drive them higher.

And now, as nations ride out a rough economy, they are becoming more reluctant to cut their own economic throats and throw money at unproductive uses.